


The Origin of a Vessel

by Kurakynr



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: 1176, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Glenn Fraldarius Lives, Glenn Fraldarius is Robin, Glenn does not have a fun time, Robin is Glenn Fraldarius, Robin!Glenn, The Grimleal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:47:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23085019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kurakynr/pseuds/Kurakynr
Summary: The Grimleal have spent centuries trying to create a vessel for their master. They have spent centuriesfailing.Until Validar looks across the sea to Fodlan for a vessel and discovered Crests.Glenn Fraldarius was just the unlucky bastard who bore a major crest and wouldn’t be missed. Nobody looks for a deadman.AKA: How Glenn Fraldarius became Robin.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 35





	1. A Bargain Is Struck

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Tactician of the Azure Moon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22143604) by [UnknownHorizom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnknownHorizom/pseuds/UnknownHorizom). 



> Canonically Glenn’s body was never found, just his sword and armor. And white hair does seem to be a pretty common side effect of crest experimentation. And getting turned into the Vessel of the Fell Dragon Grima is close enough, right?
> 
> And Robin’s a canon amnesiac.
> 
> AKA: Robin is Glenn Fraldarius, or at least he used to be.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _1174_

The Grimleal have spent centuries trying to create a vessel for Grima. An uncountable number have perished in the dark rituals. Each failure a blood sacrifice to the Fell Dragon. Yet, Grima still hungers for a body. A vessel that would allow him to once again walk among mortals and sow destruction and chaos.

Oh, how his devout followers eagerly await their master’s resurrection. How they yearn for the day the sky will blacken and the Risen will rise. The Grimleal have dedicated themselves to the return of Grima. Creating the Vessel of the Fell Dragon is the ultimate goal of all Grimleal. Both as a collective and in ruthless vicious competition. Each Grimleal leader wants to finally be the one to answer their master’s greatest wish. 

In this regard, Validar is no different to those who have come before him; however, he is the first to ask for _help_. 

Generations of Grimleal have tried and failed to find a suitable vessel. The precious few who survive until the final ritual have all died on the altar. None are strong enough to bear Grima’s heart. Their bodies, mind, and souls tearing themselves apart in rejection of the dragon blood.

So Validar looks elsewhere for potential vessels.

Under Validar, the Grimleal starts taking subjects from Valm and Fodlan. The people from Valm are just as disappointing failures as the those from Plegia, Ylisse, and Regna Ferox. Fodlan though, the ones from Fodlan are interesting. Most of them are just as wretched as the others, but...there are those that take longer to expire. Too many of them last for this to be dismissed as a fluke. 

The Grimleal investigates.

They find the one thing all of the subjects who didn’t immediately expire had in common: noble blood. They were all noble bastards or the children or grandchildren of noble bastards. The Grimleal are giddy.

The blood of Fodlan nobles is special for one reason: Crests.  
—  
The Agarthans are not impressed with the cultists they find scurrying around in the shadows of Fodlan like rats. These Plegian foreigners are scavengers too fearful of attracting the attention of the Church of Serios to take more than scraps. Many abandoned bastard children of nobility have been disappearing in recent months. Children spirited away into the night never to be seen again. There are whispers of dark mages willing to pay gold for bastard children of crest bearers. 

The cultists are ignorant of how the system of crests and nobility works. They think they can find a crest bearer who won’t be missed if they comb through the discarded mistakes. Nobles test all the children before leaving them and their mothers to rot. If a child had a crest they would have been kept. It’s possible the Plegians might find one a few generations removed from the source, but the odds are laughable low. 

They are too cowardly to risk abducting a crest bearer and someone taking notice. The nobility guard their crests and bloodline jealousy after all. So the Church and nobility are oblivious to the disappearances, but the Agarthans notice. The Plegian cultists might be lowly rats, but they might have their uses as a future diversion.

So overtures are made. 

The Plegian cultists are called the Grimleal. They have influence, power, and resources in Plegia, but in Fodlan they have little to offer. The Grimleal want so many precious and rare things. They want a major crest bearer. One that is young and healthy and will not be missed. And they want information on crests, on their creation and function. Validar shares few details of what exactly the Grimleal’s intentions are, but the Agarthans suspect they have an idea. 

The Grimleal seek to bind the essence of a divine dragon into a mortal human body.

Oh, the Agarthans are interested in these little Plegian cultists now. The Church would tear Fodlan apart (perhaps even beyond) to eradicate the Grimleal if they were to learn of the cultists intentions. Yes, the Grimleal will make fine distractions when the time comes. The Agarthans begin to take notes. They began to make a trail of evidence for later discovery. The utter chaos such a thing could unleash is worth parting with a bit of hidden knowledge and a minor crest bearer. 

Validar will not accept anything less than a major crest bearer. _only the best for Grima._

The Agarthans say Validar can’t afford better, not with what the Grimleal are offering.

The Grimleal sweetens the pot. 

Validar offers a _Manakete_.

A bargain is struck.

A deal is made.


	2. The Clutches of The Grimleal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _1176_

When Glenn Fraldarius falls in Duscar he expects to die. He _should_ have died that day, but someone dragged his body out of the fiery ashes of Duscar. He doesn’t know who saved him. It wasn’t his current captors—The Grimleal. No, Glenn is pretty sure the Grimleal came after...something. His memories of what came between Duscar and The Grimleal are fuzzy. 

Glenn still thinks he hates his saviors. They had given him to the Grimleal after all—as part of some deal from what the young knight has been able to gather. An exchange of sorts. As the few long strands of blonde-green hair he’d found on the cot could attest, there had certainly been someone else in this cell before Glenn. 

Glenn doesn’t know what to expect the first time the Grimleal unlock his cell door. He tries to escape. Even unarmed, he is still a knight of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. He isn’t helpless. He sends the first one to the ground, sends the second reeling with what Glenn knows is a broken nose, and knocks the wind out of the third with a knee to the gut. Glenn bolts then.He makes it less than three meters before a mage drops him. 

His limbs turn to lead and he collides with the sandy stone floor. Then his body stands up of its own accord and obediently follows the mages down the hallway. Fucking mages. If he had been able, Glenn would have kicked the one walking directly in front of him.  
_____

Back in his cell, Glenn lays shaking and trembling on his cot. Everything hurts and the chanting still echoes in his brain. He can still feel the disgusting dark magic clinging to his skin. He can still feel where they had cut him open over and over. His skin is free of blemishes. The Grimleal had taken great care in healing him once they had finished with him, but he still felt it. Healing magic wasn’t supposed to leave you hurting and in pain. 

His shirt is gone now. 

Not that Glenn truly needs it. The underground labyrinth he is trapped in is warm and dry. He guesses this place is in a desert from the grains of sand dusting every surface. Still, it’s something his captors have taken from him and it’s one less thing separating him from them. 

Sothis, Glenn is pathetic. Upset over a _shirt_. He calls himself a Fraldarius. A knight. Nearly in tears over some disgusting black magic and pain. He was—is better than this.

Gritting his teeth, Glenn pushes himself into a sitting position and closes his eyes. He breathes deeply trying to calm himself. If he wants to get out of this place, to escape, to go home, he needs to think. He can’t count on a rescue or outside aid. Glenn knows he is almost certainly presumed dead. He’ll have to save himself.

The Grimleal won’t kill him anytime soon, Glenn thinks. Beyond healing his wounds (that they had inflicted), the Grimleal look at him with a kind of hopeful (and very off putting) reverence after...the ritual. They still might kill him later as some kind of sacrifice (Glenn is getting some very strong cult vibes from these mages), but for now Glenn has time to plan and find a way out.

And Glenn will find a way out. 

...Father thinks he’s dead. Felix too. And Glenn has to get back. He has to make sure that Prince Dimitri survived and go home so his family doesn’t have to mourn anyone else. They have already had to mourn Mother and Glenn doesn’t fancy adding to his family’s grief.  
———  
Glenn loses track of the number of times he’s dragged (walked—the bastards learned after the first time, they don’t open his cell door until his body is their puppet) down the corridor to the ritual room to be cut open, chanted at, and imbued with dark magic. Four to six months have passed since Duscar, Glenn estimates from the length of his hair. He hasn't had the opportunity to attempt another escape. The Grimleal watches and guards him like a dragon would a priceless treasure.

To the Grimleal he might actually be. Glenn knows the cultists are doing something to him. The Grimleal are imbuing him with a frankly absurd amount of dark magic. He can _feel_ the tainted energy clinging to him as it seeps into him. It’s simultaneously literally sickening and empowering. His skin crawls with how thick and ancient and _other_ the magic is. This is not human magic. Human magic does not radiate off it’s weirder in a haze of purple energy-smoke. 

Part of Glenn wishes he could actually make use of the magic. He isn’t able to ‘touch’ it, but he can feel it. Glenn doesn’t think he’s ever felt anything comparable in power in his life. It’s a metaphorical vast dark deep ocean filled with an unknown horror that terrifies Glenn...but he is certain he can kill the Grimleal if he can (and dares to) touch even a fraction of it.

He doesn’t know what turning him into a defective magical battery is meant to accomplish, but Glenn suspects he’ll find out sooner than later. The Grimleal grow more excited by the day.

Glenn hates it.

He wishes he knew more about magic. He’d never learned more than Heal. The knight had been more interested in learning the way of the sword like Father than magic.  
———

This time, when the Grimleal come for Glenn something is different. They do not speak, but they move with an eager—almost manic giddy—energy that sets Glenn immediately on edge. He can’t resist them, he never can. Dark magic turns his body into a puppet. He walks out of his cell with his own feet.

He’s strapped to an altar in the middle of a ritual circle. 

A sea of Grimeal surrounds him. There are more than usual. Many many more watching and chanting in their robes decorated with those gaudy golden eyes. Validar is the one performing the ritual this time. A ritual knife draws Glenn’s blood time after time. Hurt and healed over and over in an endless cycle.

The air thrums with dark magic. 

An inky darkness seems to loam over the room.

An unseen pressure pushing down on him.

Glenn chokes as they force the black sludge down his throat. His mouth tastes like copper and corpses. The cult’s chanting thunder through the air, deafening him. His blood is burning. His veins are filled with lava, death, and pain and the small part of Glenn’s mind not preoccupied by the agony wonders if he would bleed black blood if they cut him again. 

A purple mark is burning itself onto his right hand. 

The smell of burning flesh is in the air.

Something dark and wrong and forigen begins to burrow into Glenn’s mind. He can feel the wispy intangible tendrils grabbing onto his mind and soul. The ancient evil filling his head and anchoring itself in place using Glenn’s very identity. 

No. No. No. 

He _refuses_. He will not let this thing have him. This evil needs a body to enter this world? His home? Felix’s home? His father’s home? Faerghus? No. No. Again, Glenn refuses. The darkness pushes down on Glenn, suffocating him and that moment Glenn doesn’t care if he destroys himself in the process so long as _that thing_ is denied.. 

Something _breaks._

Glenn _screams._

—

When Glenn wakes his hair is white and his eyes are gold. It’s wrong. He doesn’t know what color they’re supposed to be, but not this. He had his father’s hair and his mother’s eyes, just like his brother. 

He can’t remember what his family looks like. He can’t summon an image of Father or Mother or Felix into his mind's eye. There’s a void in his memories, Glenn realizes. The faces of his family are not the only things missing. 

Is Felix his older or younger brother? Younger, Glenn thinks. He isn’t sure though. He isn’t sure what Felix is like either. He loves his brother for certain. Yet whatever personality he might have and the relationship they once had is absent. 

Who or what is Duscar? Glenn thinks he failed somehow. But also didn’t fail. A not complete failure maybe? Whichever it was, that name was tied to Glenn ending up with the Grimleal.

Where is he from? Glenn knows it’s cold, that there are pine trees covered in snow and summer is the only season the lakes are not safe to play on. He can’t see it though. There is not picture or name to put to the list facts Glenn can list about his home. He’s not even sure how long he’s been here. 

There’s so much more gone and Glenn can’t even tell what is missing. 

Glenn rages and grieves.

He _hates_.  
—  
The rituals stop and Glenn moves a new cage. He’s surprised they are giving him a proper bedroom. He’s treated less like a highly prized lab rat and more like a priceless pet. He’s feed proper meals. His hair cut and he is clean for the first time in months (Glenn thinks). He has a bookshelf full of books to occupy his now empty and pain free time. He’s given new comfy yet practical robes in the Grimleal purple goldeneye style. Glenn hates the clothes, but he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter.

At some point early on Glenn developes a habit of shattering mirrors. He’s not exactly sure why he started that particular act of defiance, but he thinks there was a reason other than annoying the Grimleal. And it does annoy the Grimleal greatly when Glenn wrecks the nice expensive shit they decorate his cage with. They have an absurd need to replace anything he breaks. He’s tempted to destroy more of his room, but something about his initial destruction of the mirrors was purposeful. He had a reason once, one that he’s forgotten. So Glenn sticks to destroying the mirrors over and over and over again.

He learns of Grima and what the fate the Grimleal intend for him.

Validar fancies himself Glenn’s father when he visits. The man likes showing him off to the other Grimleal. Glenn is his prized accomplishment. A crowning jewel. He calls Glenn his son and blood.

The first time the Grimleal leader calls Glenn his son, Glenn tries to strangle him. It might be true. Validar might be his father. The smokey wispy haze of his memories unable to offer up any evidence to the contrary, but Glenn knows is not his father. This despicable man is not his father. 

His father is nothing like this wretched cultist. His father is noble and principled and someone Glenn knows he looks up to. To insinuate Father and Validar have anything in common makes Glenn rage and Grima’s influence stir.

Eventually though, Glenn stops resisting. He still despises Validar. Glenn still dreams about pouring black lava down the man’s throat as he lies helpless beneath him. Yet, Glenn decides he will bite his tongue and waits for the chance. 

For escape or vengeance, whichever comes first.

—

The Grimleal got complacent.

Validar got complacent.

The Grimleal worship Grima, and he bears the Fell dragon’s heart. The poisonous purple brand on his declares him to be the vessel of Grima to anyone aware of its significance. To the lower level Grimleal acolytes who don’t understand the difference between their deity and his vessel, he _is_ their Dark God incarnate.

They dress him in finery and turn his cell into a gilded cage. They think he’s nothing but a shell, a doll emptied of everything that once made it a person and ready to accept its role as vessel. The Grimleal aren’t entirely wrong, there is very little of him left. But there’s enough.

And Grima’s followers are _fanatical._

His eyes are red when he tells them of the heresy of their leaders. Of how Validar bound the Fell Dragon into a form of flesh and blood in order to slay him. Of how they are pretenders and frauds, preying on the devotion of the loyal. 

He draws on the smallest sliver of the dark gods' influence. To turn his eyes red and give off the sickly purple crackles of energy. He needs the lowly Grimleal to believe him when he commands them to free him and turn on their masters. 

Grima claws rake through his mind, demanding access and entry. He doubts what little remains of his memories will survive this dip into Grima’s influence. There isn’t much left for him to lose. Not even his name has survived this long. He doesn’t know if he even has a home to run to, let alone where it might be.

But he hates the Grimleal. 

Grima is despised with every fiber of his being.

——

Grima roars as he runs, never stopping.

Release me, the Fell Dragon demands.

Instead, he refuses.

Memory turns to dust.

A young man falls in a field.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m going to be taking a few liberties with how exactly being Grima’s vessel works to better fuse it with 3Hs. Still working out the logistics of that.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be just one really long (for me) one-shot. I have over two thousand words written right now and it’s still growing.
> 
> But, this first part I think works better as its own chapter. It’s the only part not really told from Glenn’s perspective after all.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Death of A Knight; Birth of A Tactician](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23757118) by [KarmaticWyvern](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarmaticWyvern/pseuds/KarmaticWyvern)




End file.
